Mother Finds Missing Daughter After 14 Years

In shortBarely three months after Christine Nalukwago came out to claim that Eagles Productionâ€™s Irene Namatovu was her daughter who was stolen from her, a lucky mother has been re-united with her daughter who she lost 14 years ago.

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A 24-year-old woman has been re-united with her mother 14 years after the two were separated under unclear circumstances.

Barely three months after Christine Nalukwago came out to claim that Eagles Production’s Irene Namatovu was a daughter who was stolen from her, a lucky mother has been re-united with her daughter who she lost in 1998.

Birungi, who is all smiles, says it was been 14 agonizing years but she continued hoping that her first born would one day come home.

Speaking to URN, 24 year old Fatuma Nassuna said she was taken from her Auntie’s home in Kyango, Masaka district, by a neighbor called Nyinasali who helped remove her from the mistreatment and handed her over to a stranger who took her to Entebbe.

Nassuna says Nyinasali waited until her auntie was not at home, called her, and told her she had got her a job. Nassuna remembers that Nyinasali gave her a polythene bag to put her clothes and took her to Kyabakuza near Masaka where she handed her over to a man who brought her to Entebbe.

In Entebbe, Nassuna found herself taking care of an elderly couple who lived in Nkumba, off Kasenyi road. Nassuna says she never left that home until she was old enough to start a family.

Nassuna says she started looking for her real family after she decided to get married. She needed to introduce her truck driver fiance to her family so she travelled to her auntie’s place to inquire about her parents. She had been told that her auntie and her husband knew the whereabouts of her biological parents.

In Kyango, Nassuna was greeted with the news that her mother Ruth Birungi had been looking for her and she got her number.

Ever since Nassuna’s disappearance, her mother Ruth Birungi had confronted Nyinasali about the whereabouts of her daughter but Nyinasali had denied knowledge of her whereabouts.

Birungi says she put radio announcements before tracing Nyinasali’s children in Kikuubo in Kampala and Entebbe, but they all denied knowledge of where their mother had taken the girl.

Birungi says she was tormented whenever she saw girls who were her missing daughter's agemates. Whenever a story was aired of children being sacrificed by witchdoctors, she could not help wondering if her daughter had shared that fate.

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Nasuuna does not believe she was kidnapped but rescued from mistreatment.

Birungi says she continued to pray for her daughter hoping she would one day come home even when she seemed to have no reason to hope. She says her home-coming lifted a heavy burden off her shoulders.

She confesses that at first she could not believe she was talking to her daughter. She learned with joy that Nassuna is a mother with two children.

However, Birungi’s only regret is that her daughter never continued with her education but she is grateful that the old couple with whom she was left took good care of her until when she found the father of her two children.

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Nassuna runs a shop in Entebbe that her husband opened for her.

When asked whether she would take Nassuna back to school, Birungi said she would discuss that with Nasuuna’s husband. Birungi is also not interested in pursuing a case against the old couple that kept her daughter saying that it’s not necessary because the girl was treated well. She advised people to treat maids humanely because its only circumstances that led them into each other’s homes.

Asked whether she was considering taking a DNA test, Birungi says it’s not necessary she is sure that Nassuna is her daughter because she resembles her grandmother and herself and there is no other viable reason why she would have come looking for her.

According to the police crime statistics in 2011, 125 children were kidnapped from their parents, 69 children were trafficked.

Uganda Radio Network is yet to speak to Nassuna in detail as Birungi says she is engaged on a round of visits to all her maternal aunts.